Focus on Flowers

Because the deer do not eat the spiraeas in my garden, I am becoming more and more devoted to these shrubs. I would never have predicted this would happen, but one’s preferences are often shaped by unforeseen circumstances – in life as well as in the garden.

On this edition of The Poets Weave, Christopher Citro reads nonsense poems by Edward Lear.

Music from the English Renaissance with Piffaro and choral music by Vivaldi with Ensemble Caprice.

Media critic Ken Auletta in conversation with Owen Johnson

Cicely Mary Barker wrote a poem for children called “The Song of the Nasturtium Fairy.” Like all of her poetry, it is old fashioned and whimsical. She visualizes a nasturtium fairy using a leaf as an umbrella, or as she says, a brolly.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British Ambassador to the United States, speaks with Patrick O’Meara and plays two favorite musical selections.

Raleigh Lee will soon receive his MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University. At Indiana, he was a reader of poetry and nonfiction for the Indiana Review and the 2010 recipient of the school's Bertolt Clever Writing Prize. Raleigh grew up in Meadville, Pennsylvania, a small town in the northwest part of the state.

Tropaeolum minor was first found growing in Mexico and Peru and introduced to England in 1574. The English called the plant Indian Cress because the leaves tasted sharp. The peppery taste and characteristic scent led to the name “nasturtium,” which is from the Latin word meaning “nose twister.”

Ryan Teitman is finishing his MFA in creative writing at Indiana University and will be a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University this fall. New poems by him are forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Sycamore Review, and Washington Square.